Declassified

A group of those involved in World War II-era nuclear development gathered Friday at the National Atomic Museum on Kirtland Air Force Base to remember U.S. atomic bomb testing and to view recently declassified historic films. The veterans were being honored during the weekend for their work.

Recently, the Bush administration has started conditioning us to accept aggression against Iran. Despite the fact that our military is currently overstretched and the strategic reasons for attacking Iran are highly questionable, Bush seems certain that he will make it happen. If he does attack Iran, it will surely result in yet another disastrous misadventure. To fight terrorism, one must first understand the origin of the hatred driving it. Because much of the history that created the problem was only recently declassified (in 2000)

WASHINGTON -- It will be a Cinderella moment for the band of researchers who study the hidden history of the U.S. government. At midnight Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many FBI Cold War files on investigations of suspected communist sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006 means the government's first automatic declassification of records.

WASHINGTON -- It will be a Cinderella moment for the band of researchers who study the hidden history of the U.S. government. At midnight Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many FBI Cold War files on investigations of suspected communist sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006 means the government's first automatic declassification of records.

Newly declassified government documents prove that the United States, after sending hundreds of Vietnamese commandos into North Vietnam during the 1960s, deliberately declared them dead, lied to their wives and then buried their story under a shroud of secrecy.Nearly 200 of those secret agents survived capture, torture and prison and are alive in the United States. They are asking the government for back pay - $2,000 a year, without interest, for their prison time - and help in getting 88 fellow commandos out of Vietnam.

ACCORDING TO an article in the Oct. 10 Sentinel, a newly declassified 410-page Central Intelligence Agency report disclosed evidence of links between the President Ronald Reagan-supported Contras and drug trafficking.How appropriate that Florida's Turnpike (Drug Alley) has been renamed The Reagan Turnpike.Sidney WeinbergWINTER PARK

WASHINGTON -- The United States declassified a third and final batch of documents on Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile on Monday, recognizing its role three decades ago in destabilizing the South American nation. The release of more than 16,000 documents, including 1,550 from the CIA, completed a review ordered in 1999.

A declassified government file from 1945 showed a single Swiss bank had $29.4 million in Jewish accounts, according to the World Jewish Congress. But last month the Swiss Bankers Association said there was only $31.9 million in unclaimed accounts for all Swiss banks from 1933 to 1945. Both sums represent what the money deposited 50 years ago would be worth today. The declassified file was among crates of documents from ''Operation Safe Haven,'' a post-war U.S. intelligence operation to locate and identify Nazi assets and looted assets in Europe.

A secret program that has hidden thousands of historical documents from the public highlights the need for Congress to do more to promote open government. Under the program, intelligence agencies have reclassified 55,000 pages of declassified documents, according to the New York Times. While it's possible that sensitive documents can be wrongly declassified, the apparent motive behind some of the reclassification was to hide embarrassing mistakes. Excessive government secrecy conceals errors, waste and corruption, and shields those responsible from accountability.

Honoring a promise by President Clinton, the Pentagon says it has released nearly all U.S. military records related to missing Americans in Vietnam in time for a Veterans Day deadline.The Defense Department announced that it had declassified and made public an estimated 1.5 million pages of documents related to Vietnam War POWs and MIAs. They include Pentagon reports on interviews with refugees from Southeast Asia, information provided by former POWs and other subjects.In a Memorial Day speech last spring at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Clinton announced he was ordering that the Vietnam POW-MIA documents be declassified and released by Veterans Day.The documents have been given to the Library of Congress and are being transferred to microfilm.

By David E. Sanger and David Johnston, the New York Times, April 10, 2006

WASHINGTON -- A senior administration official confirmed for the first time Sunday that President Bush had ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq in an effort to rebut critics who said the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein. But the official said Bush did not designate Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby or anyone else, to release the information to reporters. The statement by the official came after the White House for three days had declined to confirm Libby's grand-jury testimony that Cheney had told him Bush authorized the disclosure.

WASHINGTON -- The White House on Friday did not dispute assertions that President Bush authorized the leak of classified information about pre-Iraq-war intelligence but described the release of such information as necessary for the "public interest." The statement appeared to confirm new disclosures in court documents that the White House, despite Bush's frequent criticisms of leaks, secretly provided material to a reporter in early July 2003 -- even though the government did not announce declassification and publicly release the document for 10 more days.

MEXICO CITY -- A leaked draft of a government report on Mexico's "dirty war" alleges the country's presidency orchestrated an anti-insurgency campaign in which soldiers carried out summary executions, raped women and set villages on fire. Based partly on declassified Mexican military documents, the report was prepared by a special prosecutor assigned to investigate alleged atrocities by soldiers. Prosecutors said the report has not yet been officially released and was undergoing changes.

A secret program that has hidden thousands of historical documents from the public highlights the need for Congress to do more to promote open government. Under the program, intelligence agencies have reclassified 55,000 pages of declassified documents, according to the New York Times. While it's possible that sensitive documents can be wrongly declassified, the apparent motive behind some of the reclassification was to hide embarrassing mistakes. Excessive government secrecy conceals errors, waste and corruption, and shields those responsible from accountability.

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge is weighing whether to make public a secret Justice Department report that officials say is sharply critical of the FBI for failing to piece together terrorism leads before the Sept. 11 attacks. In a court filing dated Feb. 1, the Justice Department Inspector General's Office asked a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., for permission to release a declassified version of the report, which the inspector general completed in July after investigating the FBI's handling of intelligence related to the attacks in 2001.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has assembled what it thinks is significant intelligence showing that Iraq has been moving and concealing banned weapons systems and related equipment from United Nations inspectors, informed sources said. After a lengthy debate about what and how much of the intelligence to disclose, President Bush and his national-security advisers have decided to declassify some of the information and make it public, perhaps as early as next week, in an effort to garner more domestic and international support for confronting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with military force, officials said.

SANTIAGO, Chile -- The government said Tuesday that it was analyzing thousands of documents on Chile declassified by the United States and that the contents could lead to charges against some Chileans. The 16,000 documents released by the U.S. State Department on Monday come from various agencies, including the CIA, the FBI and the State and Justice departments.

The National Security Agency has reversed itself and declassified two cryptography texts it previously had insisted were secret even though they were available in public libraries. The announcement Wednesday came as a result of a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act by a Silicon Valley computer scientist. The agency is in charge of protecting U.S. codes and cracking foreign ones.

KIGALI, Rwanda -- Rwanda said Thursday that all Western powers, not just the United States, turned a blind eye to genocide there after newly declassified documents showed U.S. officials were aware of the killing at an early stage. Hundreds of pages of U.S. archive material released this week showed officials avoided using the word genocide because it could have obliged them to intervene, while high-level officials made scant effort to stop the slaughter in 1994.

SANTIAGO, Chile -- The government said Tuesday that it was analyzing thousands of documents on Chile declassified by the United States and that the contents could lead to charges against some Chileans. The 16,000 documents released by the U.S. State Department on Monday come from various agencies, including the CIA, the FBI and the State and Justice departments.